Christmas:

My congregation and her friends and family celebrate with a Lessons and Carols service that follows the story of salvation through scripture and enhances the readings with anthems and carols. It's a story that can be a bit dense and hard to understand, especially when you pull out 9 short passages of a 66 book compilation of the human experience of God at work.

But it's just this weird story that is life changing, world changing. It's a story of God's grace; God creates, loves, and works for our reconciliation with God and each other simply because of God's great love for us, not for anything we do or are. We are beloved. Period.

Ponder this Christmas morning the power of those words. We are the beloved children of God. Period. Imagine if each of us lived fully into that love, and treated each other like we are beloved children of God. Imagine....

And the love part...God's love is not a syrupy, saccharine Hallmark expression. God's love works hard. It learns and works for the welfare through concrete actions.

And that's the story. Text after text of God's work to love God's people. Promises enacted. Promises for the future.

That's the weird little story we celebrate today. The world is busy celebrating the perfect gift, table setting, wine, tradition....Perhaps less confusing and obtuse, just look at Pinterest and you know what it's supposed to look like. Fun? sure. Memorable? likely. But life-changing? world-changing?

Do I live this story perfectly...not even close. But this is the story I choose to be shaped by. This is the story I'll struggle with until it makes some sense.

This is the story that makes Christmas truly Merry....

We are beloved Children of God. Period.

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us...

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. (verses from today's reading, 1 John 4:7-16)